Two Weeks from Tomorrow

You know what starts in two weeks, yes? It's the City Nature Challenge! Go look at how many areas around the globe are participating: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/city-nature-challenge-2022.

Four days of tromping everywhere, looking at everything, getting wet and muddy and, I hope, not tick-ridden, uploading hundreds of observations, confirming IDs on hundreds of other people's observations, and glorying in SPRING! It's FUN!!!

Also, there might be ice cream. And you can ignore the garden and housework without guilt, because this is for science (for a loose definition of science). It's at least raising environmental awareness, which is, frankly, more important.

But I'm torn this year. In the last three years, I've mostly done the Boston City Nature Challenge (https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/city-nature-challenge-2022-boston-area ; it includes much of eastern Massachusetts), either as myself or as Mass Wildlife when I was still working. In 2020, I spent two days in the Boston area and two in the Pioneer Valley City Nature Challenge area (https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/city-nature-challenge-2022-pioneer-valley ; the three counties through which the Connecticut River flows). The Boston CNC is very well-organized; over 1,800 people participated last year. The Pioneer Valley CNC, which was started in early 2020 out of UMass Amherst, has been hampered by the pandemic; only 189 people participated in 2021. They are looking for people to help organize the Valley CNC, but it's too late this year to get up and fully running.

I don't live in either CNC region (anyone want to start a Worcester County, MA, CNC?). Doing the CNC in the Boston area involves a minimum of an hour's drive, up to three hours one way to get down to the Cape. That's a lot of driving in four days - not terribly environmentally sensible. I can drive 15 minutes and be in the Pioneer Valley CNC area; the farthest reaches of that area are maybe an hour and a half drive.

What I'm inclined to do is work the Valley CNC for four days and call it scouting for next year, 2023, when maybe I'd be foolish enough to work on organizing the colleges and universities, the environmental groups, and the local iNatters to do a full-on Valley CNC. In the my dreams, I'd like to see more City Nature Challenge regions in Massachusetts: greater Boston, Worcester County, the Pioneer Valley, and the Berkshires. Not unreasonable, and why not have more CNCs across New England while we're at it?

What do you all think?

Publicado el jueves, 14 de abril de 2022 a las 01:01 PM por lynnharper lynnharper

Comentarios

Lynn,

I know someone who is energetic, passionate, and charismatic that would be great spearheading a Worcester CNC... the author of this journal post! Think of the traction you gained with your plant ID-a-thon, where you somehow attracted some of our area's best botanists to sit in front of a computer screen in the dregs of winter when it was cold, dark, and no green to speak of outside. This is different, things are getting green again, the weather is nice, and everyone is just looking for a reason to spend more time outside!

Overall I totally agree with you, I think that it would make the CNC more inclusive (and greener by encouraging people to travel less) if it had a wider coverage area, and hope that it manages to expand in some capacity in the future. Just an anecdote to illustrate this for what will be my experience this year: I will be in California doing a nature nerd road trip around the state a few weeks and this is right in the middle of it, and unfortunately the vast majority of places I'll be (over 75%) are out of CNC areas! Fantastic natural areas like the Mendocino pygmy forests, Mono Lake/Inyo National Forest, and Death Valley are all outside of CNC coverage!

Anotado por natemarchessault hace casi 2 años

Ha - you're very kind, @natemarchessault! But the reality is that I'm not as fascinated by Worcester County as I am by the Valley, plus the City of Worcester has had its own CNC the last year or two (but apparently not this year??), so I'm hoping that group will expand to take over the whole county.

More inclusivity is always great, as far as I'm concerned. Other than organizational challenges, there's no reason why Massachusetts couldn't be blanketed with CNCs. How long did it take before there were lots of Christmas Counts? The CNC only started in 2016, and that was just a friendly competition between the cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco. Doing a CNC in late April is the perfect kick-off to the field season as far as I'm concerned!

Anotado por lynnharper hace casi 2 años

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